


silver lining

by rosemeister



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: F/F, Semi-established relationship, do i even need to tag 'friends to lovers' when its this ship lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 07:03:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20188240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosemeister/pseuds/rosemeister
Summary: Jaina visits Vereesa, and the balances between them shift.





	silver lining

She sees Jaina in letters more than in person, these days. Vereesa has a collection of them, kept in a small box in her room. Some are rambling and detailed, dry things Jaina writes when she’s had her head stuck in a book for too long. Others are evasive, and dance around delicate truths. But most are sweet, gentle words full of mad hopes for a distant future.

Still. The promises she writes in them are hard to believe. And maybe Vereesa could have believed in each one had she been younger, if time had made her less cruel. As it is, she keeps the most recent one close to her heart, and she plays with it now as she waits, trying not to let doubt rise up her throat and strangle her. And while promises are thin things that change with the direction of the wind, she still trusts Jaina to at least try to keep her word.

Her door opens just when she hopes it will, and Vereesa tucks the letter away and out of sight. She wordlessly holds out a glass of wine and tracks the quiet laugh that fills the air as she does, and she smiles to herself as Jaina moves beside her to take it, her fingers brushing across Vereesa’s with as little subtlety as she can muster.

“The boys are already in bed.” Vereesa says, turning to face her. “They should have long since fallen asleep.”

“Good.” Jaina says. She smiles, but somehow it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, dragged down instead by the leaden weight of exhaustion. There are deep circles under her eyes, and lines on her face that seem to deepen every time Vereesa sees her. Frown lines mostly. Vereesa can’t quite remember the last time she saw her smile properly.

They stand in her kitchen, in Dalaran. It’s nothing fancy, hardly something she’d dream of allowing anyone else see if she weren’t assured of their lack of judgment. There’s far too much destruction left behind by the living hurricanes that are her sons, too many chipped glasses and cracked plates she’s never found the time to replace, and a store of cheap wine too large to be beyond notice.

But Jaina has her own vices, her own preoccupations, and her eyes wash over it all, content to lean against the kitchen bench with Vereesa by her side, one hand idly playing with her glass. She swirls it, lets it spin dangerously close to spilling, but controls the motion before anything pours over. She drinks it, but only in small measures, content to spend most of her time playing with it instead.

They never mention it, never breathe air into the truth, but they both know the wine is just an excuse. A thin illusion cast over the obvious. Little more than a reminder of the first time this had happened, when they had been drunk on wine and war, an accident that had so quickly evolved into something else, intentional but never quite put into words.

Neither of them is drunk yet either. Or even approaching it. But the illusion has been cast, the excuse painted on, and finally Jaina reaches over and touches her. One hand on Vereesa’s arm, just to get her attention, barely hesitating for a second before Jaina has leant in, brushed her lips against Vereesa’s jaw.

“It’s good to see you again.” She murmurs against her skin, and Vereesa can feel the quiet breath of a laugh that escapes her as Vereesa shivers.

And her touch lingers. But just for a second. Only a second. And then she is leaning away, swirling her wine again, her focus drilled in on nothing but the glass in her hand, leaving Vereesa to try and regain self-control, to force thought back into her mind. She clenches her hands where Jaina can’t see them, and resists the urge to push back right now, to let Jaina win.

The question of who will break first remains, as it always does. One more game, one more attempt at denial.

“How has Dalaran been?” Jaina asks, her tone entirely too neutral. “Any news?”

“Not for a few months.” Vereesa tells her. “Somehow I’m sure you’ve been through more events of note lately. Since you were here last, I’ve largely been doing paperwork.”

Jaina shrugs her shoulders slightly. “And I have such exciting paperwork in comparison.”

There’s a loose strand of hair, escaped from Jaina’s usually neat braid, and Vereesa reaches out to tuck it behind her ear. She almost leans in further, tries for something more, but her fingers catch on a ridge of healing scar tissue. It’s only small, but the fact that any of it remains at all after a healer’s touch tells Vereesa everything she needs to know.

How many other wounds are there, Vereesa wonders? How many others has Jaina had healed away into nothing before she can even notice? How many close calls have there been, in the battles Vereesa never gets to see, eternally doomed to hear about them days later through gossip from mages? How many times has Vereesa almost lost her without even knowing?

And it’s all too easy to imagine what could have caused it. A half-dodged arrow, a sword that could have cut so much deeper. Or even a spell, from some lucky mage that managed to surprise someone like her.

Even dealing with the thought is like trying to swallow acid, burning on her lips and setting her heart and stomach aflame. It’s hard enough to be forced to linger on the sidelines of this war, chained by neutrality and the decisions of those with more power than her. Knowing that Jaina has been in so much danger without her there to stop it…

She hates it. Her hand lingers, her touch light but persistent, as Vereesa quietly tries to calculate some desperate measure in her mind. Who could stop her really, from marching herself and the entire Silver Covenant down to the front lines, from gluing herself to Jaina’s side, ensuring that next time she would be there to protect her, that unlike every other time someone she loved was in danger, she would be there with bow in hand to stop it, to-

“It is only a scratch.” Jaina says, brushing her hand aside. “I’m fine. Really.”

“That is not just a scratch!” Vereesa says. Her control breaks, a thin barrier collapsing before her fury. “It so easily could have been worse!”

“But it wasn’t-”

“_But it could._” Her words escape as a growl, low and almost feral. Some distant part of her mind hates how fast panic and fear have wrapped burning chains around her heart, forcing sharp words to escape from her lips without thought. “Were you even going to tell me this at all?”

Jaina cheats. She runs a hand up to cup Vereesa’s jaw, lightly at first, a touch of comfort and not one more chain. Vereesa melts for her, like she always does. Not completely, but enough to swallow every other sharp word. Part of her still wants to fight, to not be so easily corralled by a single gentle touch. But Jaina’s touch is soft, and real, and no matter what happened, Jaina survived it. And she made it back to her.

Words are terrifying, and threaten to make that which has lain formless for so long into something real. And there is a mad conviction in Vereesa’s mind, that if she never lets the words slip out this will never change. Because if she lets actions and thoughts and emotions become spoken reality, she runs the risk of losing it all again.

She’s a liar, and a fool besides. But that doesn’t stop the fear from freezing her tongue.

“I’m sorry.” Jaina says. “I should have- If I’d only- I should have told you. I just wanted to feel normal, for one night. Just one night. To drink too much wine and complain about paperwork and forget about everything else. But that’s unfair. You deserve more.”

“Do I?” Vereesa asks quietly.

“You deserve it all.” Jaina says firmly. “More than I give you. I-” Jaina stops mid-sentence, and she trails a hand to Vereesa’s waist, pulls her closer in, gives up on pretences and kisses her, once, then twice, then enough times for Vereesa’s concentration to lapse, to forget about everything but the feel of her, steady and warm.

“Not tonight.” Jaina whispers, a secret held against her skin. “Perhaps tomorrow. But not now. Please.”

Desire curls in her chest, steers Vereesa’s thoughts, forces her hand. And maybe tomorrow they will actually talk, bring to light all of _this_. To stop hiding, from their people, their families, themselves. To stop labelling this as a continual drunken accident just because they have had the barest taste of wine. But maybe they won’t. In all likelihood, they won’t.

Jaina kisses her again, deeper this time, hungrier. She starts moving, sets the two of them to slowly and gracelessly stumble towards Vereesa’s room, on a path well worn by time and habit. And Vereesa kisses back, just as hungry, just as desperate, has her hands playing with the edges of Jaina’s cloak, already devising an excuse to remove it.

But she spares herself a second to think, and pulls herself far enough away to lean her head on Jaina’s shoulder. She breathes heavily there, wordless, digging her fingers further into Jaina’s cloak. Far enough to feel the woman beneath. To check that she is still there, that she is still alive. That Vereesa hasn’t lost her, not yet.

Their movement falters, and Jaina goes still against her, waiting, gentle and cautious, no doubt worried that she has pushed a step too far, crossed some unspoken boundary.

It only makes Vereesa want her more.

“We will talk tomorrow?” Vereesa asks. Quiet, but even Jaina couldn’t miss it, not from so close.

There’s a second. A moment when Jaina stands there, just as quiet, just as still, leaving the answer to drift. A small question, but weighted. They both know what it means.

Vereesa is almost terrified of the answer.

“Yes.” Jaina says. Her voice is calm now, even if it too carries its own burden of implication. “We will.”

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly did mean to upload this like over a week ago but I've been immensely distracted by the new fire emblem lmao


End file.
